BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times
ROY & PATRICE WILLIAMS
Live: Huffman
Married: Sept. 14, 1991
Met: Fall 1986, at Jacksonville State University [JSU]. Roy was a senior and Patrice a freshman. They’d crossed paths a few times, but the first encounter was at the first college party Patrice ever attended at the Leone Cole Auditorium on campus.
“I remember this tall skinny guy asking me to dance and he was trying to talk to me while we danced and I couldn’t understand anything he was saying,” Patrice recalled. “And when the song was over I got off that dance floor so quick, it was like ‘exit stage right’ because who tries to talk while they’re on the dance floor?”
By January 1987, Patrice and Roy made a connection that lasted. She began working for the school newspaper, The Chanticleer as the secretary where Roy was the news editor and recalled that Patrice had still not begun paying him any interest.
“…and when she started working there, I thought she was cute, and I told the editor, who was my former girlfriend,” he remembered, “I said, ‘I think I like that girl’ … And we would have these office gatherings and would go out as a group. One day in walks the editor, [and asks in front of everyone] ‘did you ask her?’,” Roy said.
“And I’m looking like, ‘ask me what?” Patrice said. And Roy was like, ‘oh yeah…do you want to go to the movies?’ And I said, ‘well, sure, when is it [the outing]? because I was thinking it was an office group thing, not a one-on-one thing.”
“I purposely chose a horror movie because I knew she’d have to huddle up close and squeeze on to me,” Roy laughed.
First date: February 1987, at a local movie theater in downtown Anniston to see ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.’ Roy picked Patrice up from her dorm’s lobby.
“Back then, it was an all-girls dorm and men couldn’t come up to the door, the RA would call you down … and when I got to the lobby it was just him, and at that time I was very ‘roll with the flow.’ I worked with him, so I trusted him and went ahead with him. But when I got to the car and saw no one else, that’s when it [really clicked] that it was just going to be us,” Patrice said.
Patrice added that Roy was the perfect gentleman. “I was really stepping outside of my norm by going to a horror movie, but he was very genteel. He asked if I wanted some popcorn, and he opened doors. He was very attentive, and he was giggling when I jumped at something happening on the screen. I spent most of the movie with my eyes closed,” Patrice laughed.
Roy remembered being happy to be in her presence. “I had to work to pursue her, and I eventually won her over,” he said. “I liked her, and I asked if I could come see her again and I would come to her dorm to study, and she would come to mine…”
The turn: October of 1987, Roy and Patrice attend the International House Ball, a formal which is where American students resided with the foreign students. It was then that Roy, who was a senior, knew he had fallen for Patrice, who was a freshman. Knowing he was about to graduate in December and move to Georgia to start working for the Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer come January 1988, Roy proposed they date and leave room to see where it went. However, by December 1987, during Christmas break, Roy couldn’t bear the thought of ending the relationship.
“I fell for her. We had been dating for about three months, and I told her, ‘I think I’m falling for you. Would you be willing to stay in a relationship with me once I’m off campus?’ and she told me ‘yes,’” said Roy. “I came home as often as I could because I missed her. I knew I wanted this young lady who was still in college to remain mine. I couldn’t afford to come home often but I made it back at least once a month … And this was before cell phones when you had to pay to talk long-distance. I knew I wanted to ask her to marry me…”
“I was thinking of the caliber of man that Roy had shown himself to be and I was willing to endure the long-distance relationship,” Patrice said.
The proposal: Christmas Day, 1990, at Patrice’s parents’ home in Ragland, Alabama. Roy proposed in front of Patrice’ s family during the gift exchange, with her father’s blessing. Patrice was now a senior with only one more semester to go and by this time Roy was living in Birmingham and working at the Birmingham News. “I was making a lot more money, and only an hour away, and we had started really dating seriously and seeing each other very often,” Roy said.
“I was nervous, and I was hoping that I wouldn’t stumble over my words. And in a way, I wished that some of my family had been there. Her dad was a very serious man, and I remember him telling me, ‘You have my blessing, but if you can’t take care of her, you send her back home’ and I said, ‘no, sir, I can take care of her.”
“I think my sister knew Roy was about to propose because she was ready with the camera,” Patrice laughed. “But then Roy got down on his knee, and he was like ‘I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you,’ and I was thinking ‘this is really happening’, and I immediately said ‘yes’ because I loved him.”
The wedding: At Roy’s former church, Greater Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Leeds, Ala., officiated by Reverend Clyde Beverly Jr. Their colors were teal, peach, and silver.
Most memorable for the bride was Roy’s late brother Dwayne Williams, coming to her changing area on official best man business.
“We wrote our own vows to each other, and we were supposed to write them on a card and they were supposed to be taped to the prayer bench. And we [she and her bridal party] were in the secretary’s office waiting for the ceremony to start and Dwayne (who served in the U.S. Army) came to that office like he was on official Army business,” Patrice remembered. “He said, ‘I’m here for your vows, my job is to tape them onto the bench, and I was like there aren’t any; I’m going to speak from the heart. And he was like, ‘What?’ He looked at me like I had lost my mind, and I said, ‘I don’t have any, but it will be ok.”
Turns out Roy hadn’t written his either. “I told him, ‘I’m going to speak from the heart too.’ My brother was very disciplined, and he just couldn’t understand [flying by the seat of your pants].
Most memorable for the groom was being serenaded by Patrice’s brother, Andre Oden, as she walked down the aisle. “He was singing one of our favorite songs, Luther Vandross’s ‘Here and Now’ as Patrice walked down the aisle, and he was singing so beautifully, and I was in awe of this beautiful young lady who was walking down the aisle to be my wife,” Roy said.
They honeymooned on a cruise to the Bahamas. “It was both of our first cruise, and we remember being embarrassed at the dinner table sitting with a group of strangers,” Patrice said. “Someone asked what we had done today, and I responded, ‘we’re on our honeymoon’ and left it at that,” she laughed. “I guess they were trying to ask what excursions we had been on, and we had been on our own private excursion.”
Words of wisdom: “Always put God first. Never lose yourself and never depend on someone else to be your sole source of happiness,” Patrice said. “Find happiness within yourself and depend on your spouse to enhance the state that you’re already at.”
“As a couple, you must also realize it’s important to give the other person their personal time. Patrice went on a girl’s trip early this year and she’s about to go on another one. I think it’s important that you spend quality time together but also realize that they need their personal time too,” said Roy. “Also, realize that you never really know what true love is until you have gone through the fire. My brother, who was the best man at my wedding, got killed on 9/11 in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, and if not for Patrice, I would not have made it because I was broken. Even 24 years later, she has patience because September is a rough month for me. The weeks leading up to [his brother’s death anniversary] I get in a dark place, and without Patrice’s willingness to be patient with me and realize that I am at my darkest and [dealing with] depression… She’s been my rock and brought me through that.
And, we had seven years of infertility [in our early marriage], in which I was ready to adopt, but Patrice did not give up. She would literally go to sleep rubbing on her stomach, basically saying God is going to give me a child … And then we had our first child, and then of course she was pregnant with our second child, our son, who she found out she was pregnant with after my brother was killed at the Pentagon…”
Patrice added: “True love in marriage is just the icing. There has to be a foundational relationship that’s there prior to all of that. Our cake is baked well … We both have a sweet tooth and we enjoy the icing, but we enjoy each other without the icing as well. When someone is sick and you’re there in those hard times (and we both had some health challenges), it’s the good and the bad. It’s knowing that you’ve got somebody in your corner that has your back on this journey with you, that you can trust. That’s sustaining power,” she said.
Happily ever after: The Williams attend the Tower of Prayer Church, in Leeds, they cofounded and serve as a deacon, deaconess and Patrice as the financial officer. They have two children, Naja, 26, and Royce, 24.
Patrice, 58, is a Ragland Ala. native [Saint Clair County], and Ragland High School grad. She attended Jacksonville State University [JSU], where she earned a BA in political science, minored in accounting and graduated cum laude. Patrice has worked for the Alabama Department of Human Resources for the last 33 years, where she serves as the program manager for all financial programs in the Bessemer region.
Roy, 61, is a Jacksonville, Ala. native, and Jacksonville High School grad. He attended Jacksonville State University [JSU], where he obtained a BA in English and a minor in communications. Roy was a journalist for 25 years and worked 23 years at the Birmingham News. For the last 10, he’s worked as the public relations specialist for the Birmingham Public Library.
“You Had Me at Hello’’ highlights married couples and the love that binds them. If you would like to be considered for a future “Hello’’ column, or know someone, please send nominations to editor@birminghamtimes.com. Include the couple’s name, contact number(s) and what makes their love story unique.
